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Hey there! So, as you may have noticed, there was no Wordy Wednesday yesterday. This is partially because I kept putting off and putting off putting one up (then honestly forgot about it until I woke up this morning, oops). Partially because, for a while now, I’ve been debating shutting down the weekly Wordy Wednesday feature. And I’d kind of maybe settled on doing that. Aaand yesterday’s Wordy Wednesday, if I had written it, was going to explain what this post is, now, explaining instead.

I’ve been writing a Wordy Wednesday every week since I started blogging in December, 2011. That makes for 235 Wordy Wednesdays over the past four and a half years, if my very crappy math came out right. That’s a lot of blog posts focused primarily on sharing pieces of writing and lessons I’m learning about writing/revising/publishing.

And while Wordy Wednesdays used to feel like an easy way to get content up on the blog, I ran out of the backlog of pieces I wanted to share a looong time ago (hence the weekly I-will-write-a-poem-in-five-minutes thing most of the WWs this past school year became). And I’ve kind of plateaued with the writing lesson thing, because I’m knee deep in just-trying-to-figure-out-how-to-make-things-work, myself, at the moment–I have been for a while and I will be for a while–so I don’t really have anything left, right now, on that topic to say.

I’ve noticed a steep decline in interest in reading the weekly Wordy Wednesdays over the past year or two. This is reasonable, because I’ve had a steep decline in interest in writing them. With WWs, blogging every week slowly morphed into a chore, rather than something I enjoyed. And it finally hit me: if the majority of you aren’t interested in reading WWs, and I’m not interested in writing them, WHY ARE WE STILL GOING THROUGH THIS WEEKLY RITUAL?

So: this week marks the end of the weekly Wordy Wednesday blog post on here.

In its place, I want to experiment on this blog. I want to have fun blogging again. I want to tell you about my adventures, and the new recipe I’m obsessed with, and the movies I can’t wait for. I want to finally find the time to recap graduation and BEA/BookCon and my road trip. I want to get back into How To posts and Fashion Fridays and everything else that used to make posting on here fun.

I’m still going to be posting every week. It just might not always be on Wednesdays and it’ll be back to being on the broader range of topics this blog used to cover, back when I had the time/energy to post more than once weekly. (Maybe with this change, I’ll actually get back to posting more than once a week again, sometimes? Fingers crossed.)

I’ve never written this blog with the hope of appealing to a wide audience. It’s always been a Little Bit of Everything–anything that crosses my mind to talk about–so I’m incredibly grateful to anyone who does read posts on here. And I feel like I’ve been letting you down with what this blog has become the past couple years.

I want to do better for you. I hope this is the first step towards that.

This doesn’t mean you’ll never see a Wordy Wednesday on here ever again. It just means they won’t be going up every week anymore.

Thank you to those who have been keeping up with the weekly WWs this entire time. You are my heroes. But I think this is a good change. I hope you do too.

I love you. Thank you for always sticking with me. Here’s to a better blog, moving forward.

Hey there! Short post tonight because I owe you like five different recap posts (and the less time I spend on this Wordy Wednesday, the more time I’ll have to finally catch up on those). Sorry!

However, quick recap of what’s happened in the past couple weeks:

Road trip! Hannah and I celebrated our graduation with a road trip to Nantucket. (And I’ll recap it very soon, fingers crossed!)

Physical therapy! I went in to get my knee and shoulder looked at and the therapists have all concluded at this point that, structurally, my body is very screwed up, so it looks like I’m going to be in physical therapy a few times a week for the next couple months while they try to fix me. (Upside: maybe no more pain soon?!)

And that is it. In large part because the events of the past few days, mostly in Orlando but also elsewhere, have honestly been too much for me and I kind of just shut down for a bit there. I can’t put into words what I’ve been feeling, and I’m not even connected to what happened, and I can’t (and don’t want to) imagine what those who are involved are feeling. It’s just… no. This isn’t okay. This is so very much not okay.

Anyway, this week’s Wordy Wednesday is a writing process post–about, well, not writing.

While I’m not actively working on a draft of a novel right now, I am working on doing my reverse outline (as part of Zero Drafting) for The Novel That Refuses To Be Named. I’ve been working on this for a little over a month and a half now, and I’m up to something like sixty pages of handwritten notes (and I am very far from being done). The amount of time I’ve been dedicating per day so far has ranged from 12+ hours, when I really get sucked into it, to only a few hours, when I’m pushing through a rough patch.

So: that’s been my life for over a month now. Constantly in the heads of my characters, in their world, not doing a ton in my own world.

Then it came time for my graduation road trip with Hannah and, with it, the horrifying realization that I wouldn’t be able to outline for hours on end during the week of the trip because (gasp) I’d be too busy having fun.

This honestly was a concern for me at this point two weeks ago. Like, I was excited for the trip of course–we’d been talking about going on a road trip for over a year–but also WHAT IF I TOOK A WEEK OFF FROM WORKING AND ALL MY IDEAS DRIED UP AND I NEVER FINISHED MY NOVEL?

Then we actually left on the trip, though, and I began enjoying myself, and I realized my fears were entirely unfounded–because instead of having fewer ideas, it was like each mile of highway our car ate up gave me another. And while I didn’t spend the week actively outlining, by the end of it I’d figured out sooo many things about The Novel that I wouldn’t have been able to at home.

All this to say: sometimes it’s good to put down your pen and paper and go be part of the world.

Who knows, the solution to your next plot dilemma might be buried (like mine) on a street on a bike ride to a lighthouse in Nantucket.

Hey there! As I mentioned in last week’s Wordy Wednesday, this is a pre-written post because, at the time of its posting, I will be (am?) out of town. However, I hope you’re having a great week and I’ll tell you all about what I was up to when I get back.

This week’s Wordy Wednesday is a poem.

**********
The sleepy drip of
sunlit rain against
windows and held-out palms,
the paradox of feeling as if
everything is happening at once
when really nothing is happening
at all,
and I love this, the way a rainstorm
can feel like silence
and sunlight
can be a blanket
and summer can be a
feeling, rooted deep in your restless heels
and your dancing fingertips
and the tug of your lips, reaching for
a smile–
I am so tired but
I am so awake
**********

It’s stupidly nice getting to type this post using the keyboard I’m used to.

Not much else has happened in the last week. I did some internship work. I did some novel work (I’m finally almost done outlining!) (and by “almost done” I mean “I have fifty-six pages of notes and if I have to do many more I will have a breakdown”). I did lots of family stuff. (We saw the new penguin exhibit at the Detroit Zoo! LOOK AT THIS CUTIE.) Aaand that’s just about it.

That’s kind of the nice part of summer, though, you know? My exhaustion from the school year has really caught up with me, so I’ve been sleeping a lot and watching lots of movies and generally ignoring the real world. And I’m so grateful for the time to detox this summer.

In honor of summer and detoxing, this week’s Wordy Wednesday is a(n ancient) song I wrote the summer after my junior year of high school. (Featuring: a recording of seventeen-year-old Julia very awkwardly singing it, because what’s a blog post without some public embarrassment.)

**********

VERSE1
Too tired to go to sleep
So I think I’ll write a song
Sometimes I wanna miss you
But the day is just too long

And you know, this restless feeling?
It is your fault
I should’ve known not to trust you
With my glass heart

CHORUS
But you said come here
And you took my hand
And you led the way
Past the grocery stand

And you said come here
And you touched my face
Funny how a stranger,
Can never be replaced

Funny how a stranger,
Can never be replaced

VERSE2
These city streets are empty
Without you by my side
I miss the feel of your warm skin
You’d breathe, and we’d be alive

And you know, this reminiscent feeling?
It is your fault
I should’ve known not to trust you
With my glass heart

[Repeat CHORUS]

BRIDGE
And I want to say
That I don’t miss you
Every day
But that’s a lie

And I want to say
That you don’t mean anything
In how each day
I cry

But I miss you
Your sweet breath on my cheek
And I miss you
Without you, my pulse is weak

And I miss you
All those times, you laughed at me
And I miss you
Always thought, we’d be eternity

Eternity

[Repeat CHORUS x2]

ENDING
Funny how a stranger,
Can be the most familiar face
Funny how a stranger,
Can never be replaced

Too tired to go to sleep…

**********

(Wow, that is way more melodramatic than I remembered. Good work, seventeen-year-old Julia.)

^You’ll notice the poll this week isn’t for next Wednesday, but the Wednesday after. I’m going out of town next week, so you’ll have a pre-written Wordy Wednesday coming your way on June 8. (However, vote for what you’d like to see on the 15th!)

Hey there! My laptop is still down for the count, so things have been kind of weird this week. Like, I know not being able to use my own computer is a text book first world problem, but still: it’s hard to work without the keyboard and screen and internet browser I’m used to. Everything just looks so ~different~.

Because of that, I’ve gotten next to nothing done since my last post. HOWEVER, I did finally get to a doctor yesterday (for the first time in like two years) and for anyone who has at all been keeping up with the saga of my messed up knee and shoulder: the shoulder is tendinosis in my bicep and the knee is probably a structural problem that could be helped with exercises and stuff. So, guess who’s off to physical therapy! #Yayyy

(But actually, I am happy to finally have answers about this stuff and to have a tentative path towards being able to, like, do things again.)

And now that we’ve gotten all of that out of the way: this week’s Wordy Wednesday is a poem.

**********

Afternoons at home are
warm, damp with humidity, and
quiet except for the breeze against
the windows and birds chirping and the dog
snoring in the hallway, just past the
cracked open white-painted door–
they are so sleepy
and still
and peaceful

They buzz with the whisper
of “this is summer,
this is summer–
hold onto it,
this last summer”

They are hours built for books
and daydreams
and listening to the quiet
**********

I preface this post by saying: I swear the graduation and BEA/BookCon recaps are coming soon(ish). I’ve run into a bit of a hiccup this week (my laptop charger broke), but as soon as everything’s back to working properly (and thus I have access to pictures and everything), I will totally get those posts up. Totally.

In the meantime: BEA/BookCon happened this past weekend! And it was so much fun/so tiring that I sat down to read Monday afternoon and accidentally fell asleep for four hours! (I am eighty years old.) Other than that and the broken laptop charger, not much else has been going on. (Anything new with you? Do something cool? Go somewhere fun? Pet a cat? Really, I will be excited to hear about pretty much anything. I’ve basically just been marathon-napping for three days now.)

Aaanyway: this week’s Wordy Wednesday is a poem.

**********

Fingers brushing against crisp white pages
laced with ink and sunlight, and
don’t you see the stars rising from the
black and white streaks,
the way the falling apart pieces
are planting growing things,
and maybe maybe maybe–
this will be the time
the words are worth more than
another promise of another tomorrow

Maybe this time
the daydreams will cross from
scribbled out hopes
to shelves and smiles and something other than
the silence at the end of
another day spent trying but going
nowhere

Maybe I should give up, but
ink and sunlight;
it’s all ink
and sunlight

P.S. Less than two weeks left to register for the 2016 Chapter One Young Writers Conference at our special early bird rate! The rest of the Ch1Con team and I would absolutely love to see you there. Check it out at www.chapteroneconference.com.

Happy Wednesday! The past week has been weirdly hectic without very much actually going on (mostly just family stuff, grad party, and endless trips to the dentist) (my mouth loves me).

Tomorrow, though, my mom and I leave for BEA and BookCon in Chicago, which is going to be SO ACTUALLY HECTIC and SO MUCH FUN and I CAN’T WAIT TO SEE PEOPLE. Let me know if you’ll also be there so we can meet up!

Meanwhile: this week’s Wordy Wednesday is a poem.

**********

Sheets of paper, crisp with
ink and lines and scribbled words,
stacked thick and high enough to build
a tower (or a world)–
I disappeared through the pages,
my own portal to Narnia or Neverland or Wonderland,
and I have come out on the other side
in a place that had been waiting
for someone to find it

I was looking for a story,
a girl and a wristwatch and ivy-coated walls,
but instead I found the universe
waiting

P.S. You only have two weeks left to enter my giveaway of a signed copy of Susan Dennard’s New York Times bestseller Truthwitch, as part of the Ch1Con blog tour! Read Susan’s exclusive guest post and find the giveaway here.

P.P.S. Two weeks is also how much time you have left to register to attend the 2016 Chapter One Young Writers Conference at our special, discounted early bird rate! Register here by May 31st to only pay $74.99.

P.P.P.S. I am currently totally addicted to “Spirits” by The Strumbellas. It feels a lot like writing, if that makes sense. I dare you not to like it.

I’m going to do a longer post dedicated to that soon, hopefully, but for now here are a few pictures from the four ceremonies my family was kind (and patient) enough to sit through over the weekend.

Since graduation, I’ve spent a lot of time watching movies with my friends, taking part in a last few Wolverine traditions (mostly: painting The Rock), and semi-moving home. (I say “semi” because I’m bouncing around a lot of places this summer, so most of my stuff is still at my apartment. But I am home for a couple weeks now, whoooo.)

Also, in the past week I’ve had a couple cool interviews and a fun guest post go up in different places:

Interview on the Ch1Con Tumblr (as part of our 2016 blog tour), about talented women and good writing! Read it here.

Guest post on Allison the Writer (also as part of our 2016 blog tour), about Star Wars and how it’s affected my writing! Read it here. (ALSO I’m giving away a full manuscript critique on this one, so make sure to enter the giveaway!)

Interview on the University of Michigan Facebook page, about graduating and my time at Michigan! Read it here.

And now: this week’s Wordy Wednesday is a song.

**********
CHORDS: G, D, Em, C [on last, just G-D-G-D-Em-C]

INTRO
Don’t leave the light on for me,
I will find you in the dark
And you should probably lock the door,
I hold your key beside my heart
I promise I am coming home,
no matter how far away and long I roam
I am always, at least a little bit
on my way home

VERSE1
Bags never seemed so heavy
until you’re carrying them across
the ocean wide

And I’ve never felt separation
the way everyone else does
but with this, I might

TRANSITION
And I don’t know where
I’ll be this time next year
or this time tomorrow

But I know someday
I’ll be right back here,
in this space I borrow

CHORUS
So don’t leave the light on for me,
I will find you in the dark
And you should probably lock the door,
I hold your key beside my heart
I promise I am coming home,
no matter how far away and long I roam
I am always, at least a little bit
on my way home

VERSE2
I know it doesn’t make sense
but I need new places
the way I used to need you

And I was born running,
never been able to sit still,
but maybe here’s what I’m meant to do

TRANSITION2
And I don’t know what
I want to do next year
or even next week

But I know someday
running right back to you
is what I’ll seek

[Repeat CHORUS]

BRIDGE [Em, C, G, D]
And I take you with me
in the photographs on my phone
I’ve got these memories to guide me
when I’m thrown

Don’t you see you’ve prepared me
the best anyone could
I promise I’ll write each week,
and I promise I’ll be good

[Repeat CHORUS]

ENDING
Dreaming of the letters I’ll send,
don’t know what else to say, but
I don’t know when,
but I’m coming home someday

Sorry this post is going up after midnight again! I made the mistake of beginning work on world-building/plotting on Time Travel Heist Story over the weekend and it’s basically swallowed me whole at this point.

Things that have happened in the past week:

We had our one and only U.S. preview performance of the play we’re taking to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival! If you’re interested in seeing it, the recording of the performance is one of the perks you can select on our Indiegogo. (Despite all of our grants and fundraising efforts this school year, we still haven’t raised quite enough money to afford the trip–we still need money for housing–so we turn to you, dear internet. You can donate to help make our dream of performing in Scotland a reality here.)

I got most of my grades for the semester in! I’m still waiting on one, but so far my lowest grade is an A-, so like I’ll take it.

Ch1Con blog tour is in full swing! If you’d like to read any of the posts (so far, we mostly have lots of brilliant interviews up), you can check out the schedule and get links to all the participating blogs here.

Did I mention that I am buried in The Novel? Because really, outside of the occasional rehearsal or break to eat, all I’ve been doing since Saturday evening is work on this thing. My brain is fried but I still have SO MUCH WORK TO DO before I get to begin actually for real writing this thing. (WHO INVENTED PLOTTING AND WHY DID THEY LET ME TRY IT?)

On the upside, the other thing I’ve been taking the occasional break for is graduation stuff. As in: senior pictures (round four) (during which I may or may not have gotten bitten by a squirrel), picking up graduation tickets, and decorating my cap.

It’s beyond weird to me that I’m graduating college. I know I’ll look back on this in a few years and think about how young I am right now–because that’s how it feels looking back on graduating from high school (heck, that’s how it feels looking back on last summer)–but at the moment this is the oldest I’ve ever been, and graduating college is one of those Major Life Milestones, and I feel somehow both prepared and entirely unprepared at the same time for this. And it’s just weird.

Knowing this was coming, though (no matter how much I might try to sidestep change), in February last year I wrote a song about graduating (from the perspective of who I was at eighteen, talking to who I am now at twenty-two). And this felt like the perfect time to share it.

So, this week’s Wordy Wednesday is a song.

**********

VERSE1 [Chords: D, A, C, G]
Wake up, today’s the day
You can’t stop the world from moving
Four years flew by in a blink

Remember, what it was like
To be five years old on your very first bike
Now you’re twenty-two and the world is big around you

TRANSITION1 [C, G, D, A]
And I know what it’s like
To feel like everything is ending
But I’m proof that you grow stronger
When everything is changing

CHORUS [C, G, D, A]
This is just another page turn
Don’t forget all the lessons you learned,
Like working hard and cutting loose
From traveling and talking and Dr. Seuss

This isn’t the end of the book
Just another chapter, I love the hook
From New York to Oxford to back home to here
You are so strong, have nothing to fear

[End on D]
Remember? Remember?

VERSE2 [D, A, C, G]
Get moving, tomorrow’s so soon
Enjoy what you have but don’t hold on too
Tight, because tomorrow’s looking all right

Remember, what it was like
To be sixteen years old, afraid that you might
Fall and now here you are flying

TRANSITION2 [C, G, D, A]
And I know what it’s like
To feel like you don’t want to leave
But I’m proof that things are okay
As long as you believe

[Repeat CHORUS]

BRIDGE [C, G, D, A]
And so much has happened since I was you
Sure you cut your hair and gained a few
But I see you—still—deep beneath your skin

And you lost some battles but you won some wars
Don’t worry, not everything’s an open door
You’re amazing and I’m so proud to be you

Please remember these years as fun and good
Because parts of them were and you always should
Remember—the good parts more

Hey there! Sorry this post is going up after midnight. Today has been weird. Mostly because I HAD MY LAST FINAL EXAM OF UNDERGRAD WHICH MEANS I AM NOW DONE WITH COLLEGE AHHHHH.

It still hasn’t quite set in, the fact that it’s basically summer now (outside of graduation), and that I’m actually done with school in time for my birthday this year (the first–and, you know, last–time that’s ever happened), and also I AM DONE WITH COLLEGE WHAT IS LIFE.

Things that have happened in the past week:

I had my honors thesis reading! It was crazy, after going to those the past few years, to finally have one that was mine. (Also, it was such an honor to share the evening with the other creative writing honors thesis students. Everyone did amazing, because they are amazing, and I’m so happy for them.) (I’m also happy because afterward my family took me out for tacos.)

My picture book came in! It’s not, you know, a real book, of course. It’s just the final project for my writing children’s literature class. But look at the pretty!

I did income taxes! (*cough* My parents stepped me through my income taxes.) Fun fact: being a full-time student with two paying jobs and also owning a small business = no fun at tax time.

I finished writing Time Travel Heist Story! Okay, so this draft is awful (which I will talk about more below, actually), but also it’s done and it’s my sixth completed novel and THANK GOD BECAUSE I HAVE BEEN WORKING ON THIS THING FOREVER.

I had my last day of work at the bookshop! I’m so sad to be leaving, because I really enjoyed doing the social media and working the register and just spending so much time in a used bookshop in general this past year, but (at least for now) it’s time to go.

I FINISHED COLLEGE! I know I already mentioned this one, but like, OHMYGOSH I AM ACTUALLY DONE WHAT IS THIS MADNESS OHMYGOSH. (Also, in my last three classes we played with a giant parachute out in a field, got free donuts from the professor, and had a pizza party during which we had story time like we were in elementary school. So like.Way to go out with a bang, college. Go blue.)

Aaand I turned twenty-two? I mean, it is technically after one AM at this point, so I am now very much twenty-two years old. Time to be a living cliche and break out the T-Swift.

And now, to expand upon the aforementioned “this draft is awful” in reference to Time Travel Heist Story: this week’s Wordy Wednesday (er, Wordy Thursday) is a writing process post.

So, I’ve been working on Time Travel Heist Story (also known as The Story that Refuses to Be Named) since last July. However, I didn’t start working on the draft I just actually finished until NaNoWriMo. This is because trying to figure out what is even going on in this story has been torture.

I’m a pantser. I basically never know what I’m doing during the first draft of a story. I make up the plot as I go and generally don’t know what the ending will be until I’m halfway through the climax. And this has worked out fine for me in the past.

However, after struggling and struggling to get literally anything to work in Time Travel Heist Story for most of the summer and fall, I realized that my usual pantsing ways just weren’t going to cut it with this novel. I had no idea who my characters were and I knew too little of the plot to be able to properly construct it. (It turns out that, unlike in most stories, when dealing with time travel the writer actually has to have some idea about what’s going on.)

Still, I can’t really do the whole “planner” thing–my mind doesn’t work that way–so just sitting down and outlining the novel wasn’t going to work. And this story needs that sort of preparation.

So, when NaNoWriMo rolled around, I decided to take a different approach: instead of trying to make my rough draft anything at all attempting to be decent, or even (gasp) taking up planning, I’ve spent it thinking on paper (or, you know, a Word doc)–exploring ideas and working out plot kinks and character arcs and world-building details, without ever actually doing much real writing.

This has led to a really rough draft. Like I’m not joking, it includes things like this:

However, after months of struggling, this draft is actually done. And now I can look over all of the things I developed in it and use those to figure out what’s truly happening, in a kind of after-the-fact outline (which is something my mind does work well with)–and, using that, when I get started on the next draft (which will be a complete rewrite, because yeah) I’ll actually, hopefully be able to finally make Time Travel Heist Story work.

With all of this in mind, I’ve taken to calling this super rough draft the Zero Draft. It’s something more than an outline (because it is ~60,000 words of novel) but something less than a legitimate first draft (because a good tenth of it has to be me making dumb meta jokes that have nothing to do with my narrator and everything to do with the fact that I wrote a lot of it during literature classes). So, what I finished writing Sunday doesn’t quite deserve to be called the first draft. But it’s leading me in that direction.

And yeah. I’m really proud of my weird, discombobulated little Zero Draft. And I’m really excited to get to work on the after-the-fact outlining and then the real first draft.

As you can see, this new method’s been working pretty well for me so far, so I figured it might be good to share it. Depending on how the next couple months of outlining and writing go, I’ll update you on whether or not I truly recommend Zero Drafting as a noveling method. But if you’re likewise struggling with your novel, it could be something to consider. (Who knows. Maybe you have 60,000 words of half-baked ideas rolling around in your mind too.)

Have you ever tried to change up the way you write? How so? Did it work out for you?

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(I’ve got a special Wordy Wednesday planned for you already for next week, so this poll’s for the week after!)